So I go on. I’ve got what I want, right? I pick up the pieces of my life. I ride, I fight, I hang with my brothers. I don’t drink or fuck though. I’m not in the mood. I do draw, but my villain’s all mope-y and acting like a sad sack of shit. He must have the flu. Or maybe it’s an evil ploy to trick the good guys into coming closer. Or he just flat-out lost his mojo and had an attack of conscience. I’ve heard that can sneak up on you, kind of like a disease. I’m… lonely.

I miss Rain.

Maybe I just need to bang her one more time?

I think about that, and one thought leads to another until somehow my head’s not flashing frames of the Kama Sutra for me and my dick to enjoy. Instead, I keep thinking about what Rain likes and how she acts and feels when we’re together. I might think about babies. Rings. Impaling myself on a nice, sharp piece of white picket fence. Karma definitely wants her pound of flesh and she’s starting with my balls.

I pick fights with the brothers, the prospects, with anyone who gets within punching distance. My ribs shriek when I bend and my knuckles are perpetually bruised and bloody, but it doesn’t help. I can’t hit my way out of this. Sex isn’t what I want, either. A couple of weeks after Rain dumps me, a pass-around hanging at the clubhouse during our Friday night party offers to show me a good time. She used to be my favorite kind of amusement. She has long legs, enormous tits, and she’s super bendy. That ponytail of hers is usually my Kryptonite—I love to fist a girl’s hair as I do her. And from the look on Ms. Bendy’s face, I could do whatever I want with her. Hot and rough, dirty and slow. She’d take whatever I gave her.

Except I don’t want to give her a thing.

All my things are Rain’s.

Yeah. Chew on that for a minute.

I give up on the party and head on out to hang by the bonfire. Ware’s sprawled in a chair, poking the flames with a baseball bat. There’s a beer bottle by his right boot but it’s mostly untouched. He’s not a big drinker, which has always come in handy when I needed a designated driver.

Gator straddles an enormous log next to him. He’s staring silently at the flames, ignoring the party raging around him. He’s not much for company, and only partly due to the scars slicing up his face. Girls tend to give him a wide berth because he’s a straight-up scary bastard, which makes his company practically a pussy-free guarantee. Plus, both he and Ware are mated, so their chick-magnet days are over.

Misery loves company so I drop down onto the log next to him.

Ware’s gaze flicks to the dancing crowd inside. “Running solo tonight?”

I shrug like it’s no big deal.

Gator angles a glance at me. Fucker might be trying to hold back laughter. “What happened to the midwife chick?”

“We split.”

I cross my arms over my chest and pretend the flames are fascinating. There’s silence, or as much silence at any rate as you get when there’s a club party raging fifty feet away, which means that even though the three of us are saying nothing at all, there’s still lots of hardcore, thumping bass punctuated by male shouts and the occasional feminine shriek. Fun shit, nothing to worry about, but I still don’t feel like going back inside.

Instead, I check my phone. It’s stupid because I already know Rain won’t text me. It doesn’t stop me from checking about a thousand times a day.

Ware reaches over and grabs my phone. “Inter-fucking-vention”

Gator shakes his head and rumbles something too low for me to catch. Pretty certain he’s commenting on my terminal stupidity, though.

“You want me to get Marly to talk to Rain? She and Poppy are doing a yoga retreat this weekend but she’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.” Ware shoves my phone into his back pocket, which is probably for the best. I’ve only had one beer tonight but I suspect I’m working up to an epic drunk text to Rain that will leave me cringing in the morning.

“What good would that do?”

Ware shoves to his feet. “She’s an old lady. Maybe she’s got the magic touch. At the very least, she can find out what’s got Rain’s panties in a bunch.”

I stab a finger in his direction. “I don’t want you even thinking about her panties. And I know what she’s upset about—I don’t need a fucking interpreter for that.”

Gator stands, dropping his arm around my shoulder. The man’s built like a fucking tank and my ribs protest the new weight. He’s a goddamned Atlas shouldering the goddamned rock instead of just pushing it up the mountain.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he rumbles.

Since I’m sober and therefore don’t much care what I do, riding sounds good to me. I elbow Gator in the ribs—not sure he notices—and head for the bikes. We drive up to Grand Isle, hitting the road hard and fast. I open up the throttle and I fucking fly, the air tearing at my hair and face because helmets are for pussies and for guys who have a happily-ever-after to come home to.

We ditch the bikes by the edge of the sand. The ocean’s hidden behind a ton of dunes and bunches of green plants that I’ll bet Rain could name. Tall, spikey plants are followed by lower, thicker clumps with tiny flowers on them. I catch myself wondering if I could dig a couple up for her garden before I remember that we’re not a thing.

We don’t bother looking for the entrance. Instead, we ignore the sign announcing that the place is closed after dark, hop the fence separating us from the beach, and kick off our boots. There’s no point in getting good leather wet. The beach here is a narrow strip of sand. The waves roll in, white and lacy on top, cold as fuck underneath. The sun’s long gone, which doesn’t help the comfort factor any. My feet are icicles before I’ve covered more than a few feet. The ocean won’t heat up until July or August.

Fuck it. I strip down, dropping my clothes at the foot of a sand dune, and shift. Ware and Gator do the same, and a fast run up the beach turns into a swim. Afterward, we shift back, make an illegal fire, and lounge on the sun-warmed sand. Gator’s brought steaks in his saddlebags, and after we finish giving him shit for being a picnic-packing Martha Stewart, we heat the meat up for all of five minutes before we tear into them.

“Coulda gone fishing.” Ware cocks a brow at Gator.

Guess he’s not done giving him shit, or maybe all that chewing’s given him ideas.

Gator doesn’t look like he cares. “You want shark sushi?”

“Yeah.” Ware frowns thoughtfully at the waves. “Might have been slim pickings out there.”

He tosses me a bottle of water because we’re driving back and you don’t drink and drive, not on a public road and not where someone else could get hurt. The pack has two golden rules: don’t go furry in front of the humans and don’t hurt anyone by accident. What we do, we do on purpose.

I don’t think I hurt Rain, not much at any rate.

Ware pulls my phone out of his pocket and looks down at it. “You sure you and Rain aren’t together?”

“Did she text?” I snag my phone from him, but the screen’s still locked. Fucker. I’ve been played.

My chest hurts. Must have been bitten by a mutant jellyfish or maybe that shark got a nibble in. I rub it like a pussy, which doesn’t help.

Ware smirks. “Feeling a little banged up?”

I flash him the bird. “Think you broke a rib last time you kicked me.”

Gator grunts something and we both turn to look at him. “Not your ribs.”

Unless he’s been doing that online medical school in the Caribbean, I don’t see how he can possibly know. “Are you a fucking doctor now?”

He shrugs and answers my question with one of his own. “You fight for everything, so why not fight for Rain? She’s pretty great.”

“She’s the best.”

“And?” Gator stares at me expectantly.

I have no clue what he thinks I’m gonna say next. No one shared this script with me. I shrug.

“He’s fucking clueless,” he says to Ware. “We should toss him in the ocean and use him as shark bait.”

“She’s human,” I point out. You know. In case they’re as terminally stupid as they look.

Ware’s smirk gets deeper. Fucker’s gonna have wrinkles before he’s forty. “Marly’s human. Poppy’s human. Think we’ve got room for another female in the pack. Jace might draw the line at a harem, but seems like that’s not where your dick’s at these days.”

Yeah. I run through my mental spank bank, pulling out all my favorite fantasies. Where my head used to be Porn stars-R-Us, now it’s 24/7 Rain and I fucking love that channel.

Gator starts shoving shit back into his saddlebags. “Lemme sum up. You like her.”

I’m gonna have to start calling him Captain Obvious.

“He wants to have a conversation about feelings,” Ware says to Gator. “He’s definitely in love.”

I open my mouth to protest. Shut it. Brother may have a point. My problem isn’t a couple of broken and bruised ribs. It’s my heart.

I try saying it out loud. “I love Rain.”

“You’re supposed to tell the girl,” Ware points out helpfully.

My phone buzzes. It would be super helpful if Rain was actually omniscient and she’s texting to let me know she’s discovered a mad, passionate love for me. I look down.

Fuck.

She’s answered my last text, the one where I asked for another chance.

We’d never work.

I chew on that while we crunch back to the bikes. When we reach the parking lot, I’ve got sand in my boots but no magic answers. Gator throws a leg over his bike. “You never were good at using your words.”

You know what?

He has a point.

And if actions speak louder than words, Imma deafen Rain.